The village of Barnes can trace its history back over 1000 years, when the land was granted toThe Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s by the King. With the distinctive loop in the river, it was longregarded as a remote and inaccessible place, until the construction of Hammersmith Bridge in 1827and the arrival of the railway in 1847. With the subsequent development, the last vestiges of rurallife and the dominant local industry – market gardening – disappeared.
With thanks to the Barnes & Mortlake History Society for the background information